Heroes Among Us
by Still believes Snivellus aka Heather Granger
Summary: What happens after the end of Harry's fourth year. Snape is on a mission to recover the only person who could protect Harry while he is at Hogwarts.
1. The Phoenixes

Heroes among Us  
  
By  
  
Heather Granger  
  
Disclaimer: I own nothing except for my original characters. Thanks to the brilliance of JK Rowling, I have been able to write this story.  
  
A/N: If you have, any feedback feel free to e-mail me at hrathert@du.edu. Tell me what you think of my idea and if you have any ideas to make it better.  
  
"Annabelle!" Severus yelled out as he rushed towards her as his eyes and body filled with a green light.  
  
***  
  
Severus Snape awoke with a jolt. He pulled up his sleeve of his night gowned and saw the Dark Mark pulsating on his forearm. He arose out of bed and looked to the window. All he could see was darkness in the vast Scotland sky. Like a flash, he went to his dresser and searched for an item buried deep with in. The contents for which he was searching for he could not find and so he got back into bed with his mind reeling. Thoughts of his past were haunting him, and he was protective to let them invade his mind.  
  
***  
  
"Severus, just the man I wanted to see." Dumbledore said as Snape walked past him in the hall the next morning.  
  
"Professor, I have class, I shall see you afterwards." He replied.  
  
"As you wish Severus, as your classes are what are important to you." Dumbledore said gently.  
  
***  
  
Severus reached the dungeon a good half hour before his class was to arrive. He started to prep the caldrons and the ingredients. He was not in a particularly good mood today, seeing that the Dark Lord disturbed his sleep last night. His wishes of Voldemort's demise were vanished, for he knew that more hardship lie ahead.  
  
The students now began to file in and he noticed that Harry Potter and Ron Weasley were among the last to enter as usual.  
  
"Class today we will be preparing a knowledge potion, but keep in mind that the knowledge that is brewed is not the knowledge that you may have in your minds. Think of this potion more of a clearing of your thoughts and focusing them on an important moment in your life that was at one time blurred." Snape hissed.  
  
Harry and Ron were discussing the recent match of Quidditch between the Chudly Cannons and the Pride of Portree, while their potion brewed. Snape swept past them staring deep into Harry's eyes.  
  
"I am sure Potter you have figured out the memory that is blurred, perhaps you will see the truth, or perhaps you will see the evil that you have fought fate against so many times." Snape said.  
  
Harry shuddered at the thought of seeing the red flaming eyes of Lord Voldermort. He quickly shook it off and stared back at Snape.  
  
"What are you staring at Potter?" Snape snapped.  
  
"Nothing, professor." Harry said trying not to snicker.  
  
"I am watching you Potter, I am always watching you." Snape said as he walked onto Longbottom's mess that was his potion.  
  
There was five minutes until class ended and the potions were ready to be tested.  
  
"Potter! Drink yours first, I want to see if you brewed your potion as instructed." Snape said.  
  
Harry looked at Ron nervously and drank the potion contained in the vile. Harry got a tingling feeling throughout his body, and went into a trance. Harry's memory of October 31st came into view. He saw visions of what he had seen bits and pieces of over the past few years. He saw Voldemort's red eyes through the cloak of black. He saw his father telling his mother to run, and his father die after Voldermort set the curse on him. Harry's eyes began to water, and he started to cry. He saw his mother begging with Voldermort to kill her instead of Harry. His mother was cursed and fell to the ground with a thump, and he saw Voldermort turn his wand on him. He shouted out the words that killed both his mother and father. "Arvada Kadavra" A green light shot out of his wand and Harry saw a purple substance come out of his hands, and Voldemort's body had vanished and his ghostly figured zoomed out the window.  
  
Harry had never seen the scene that he laid witness to in the next few minutes. A purple phoenix soared into the window, and then a green one. The brushed over Harry's body and stopped him from crying. They landed on the floor by his crib and transfigured into wizards. His vision blurred and he could not make out who they were as he was violently thrusted back into Potion's room.  
  
Harry was astonished that two phoenixes were actually witches or wizards. It seemed that they had calmed him and made him feel better after Voldermort had tried to kill him.  
  
"POTTER! What did you see?" Snape asked.  
  
"I saw my parents dying at the hands of Lord Voldermort." Harry said vaguely as the other students gasped as he said He Who Must Not Be Named.  
  
"Anything else Potter?" Snape urged. Harry did not want to say what else he had saw knowing that his memory had blurred at the end.  
  
"No, sir." Harry said.  
  
"Potter, I am guessing your memory blurred at the end, you will receive a C for a mediocre potion." Snape hissed.  
  
***  
  
The bell rang and Harry, Ron and Hermione rushed to grab their things and headed for the Gryffindor common room.  
  
"So Harry, was it horrible?" Ron asked.  
  
"It was horrible of him to put you on the spot like that knowing what your memory would be." Hermione said.  
  
"I saw two phoenixes fly through the window right after Voldermort left. They stopped me from crying." Harry said.  
  
"But Harry, you said that you didn't see anything except your parents, well you know." Hermione trailed off.  
  
"I know, but for some reason Snape knew I was lying. I don't get it, how does he know so much?" Harry asked.  
  
"Maybe Dumbledore told him what had happened." Ron suggested.  
  
"I don't know something tells me that he was there, or perhaps someone he knew was there." Harry said.  
  
"But you said you saw phoenixes, not humans." Hermione said.  
  
"But those phoenixes were not phoenixes at all, they were wizards!" Harry said remembering the last part of his memory. Ron and Hermione gasped.  
  
"What?" Harry questioned.  
  
"There are only 5 known witches and wizards who can turn into phoenixes, Harry." Hermione stated.  
  
"The things you miss when you are shut off from the wizarding world." Harry said.  
  
"Well, who are they Hermione?" Ron asked.  
  
"No one knows, but the ones who posses those powers, are very powerful witches and wizards." Hermione said.  
  
"Why did they visit me? And why didn't they take me somewhere safe, if they were trying to help me in the first place?" Harry asked.  
  
"I don't know." Ron and Hermione said.  
  
****  
  
Severus reached the gargoyle that blocked the entrance to Dumbledore's office and shouted "Sugar Quills." The gargoyle swung back to reveal the spiral staircase. Severus rode the stairs until he reached Dumbledore peering down at a few papers.  
  
"You wanted to see me Headmaster?" Severus questioned.  
  
"Yes, sit down Severus; I am afraid that I must call on you again to help me." Dumbledore said.  
  
"As you know Voldermort is gaining power wherever he might be in hiding. Soon he will call on you to go to him. I must ask you to find out any information that I might use. You were very helpful to me about Professor Qurrill and your ability as an aurora has helped me tremendously." Dumbledore paused.  
  
"Thank you Dumbledore, but I do not deserve your praise." Severus said quietly.  
  
"Now, Severus in the meantime I need you to do me another favor."  
  
"Anything, sir." Snape humbly.  
  
"Obviously you remember Annabelle Figg."  
  
"Yes, what does any of this concern her?" Snape said defensively.  
  
"You must fetch her for me before the start of the term next year. Her mother Arabella has told me that she was in America somewhere teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts. We need her here, in order to watch over Harry when you have to leave." Dumbledore finished.  
  
"Sir, you know perfectly well, the manor of our relationship. We have not spoken to each other for years, and you want me to go find her and make her come back to the very place she fled?" Snape hissed.  
  
"Your probably the only on she will listen to Severus. I know that you have feelings that have been untouched, but Severus you and she have a special bond, a bond that can not be broken." Dumbledore said.  
  
"Can't Minivera deal with this? What about Hagrid you're always sending him on field trips for you." Severus said unsteadily.  
  
"If you do remember Hagrid is already trying to complete a task that I sent him on right after the TriWizard Tournament. Minivera has a family that she spends little time with as it is, and well you have no family, Severus. I must ask you that you comply." Dumbledore said finally.  
  
"I will go get her if that is your wish, but do not expect her to walk in her on her own free will." Severus said slyly.  
  
"Severus, I trust that you will persuade her to come and that she makes the decision on her on." Dumbledore said.  
  
"Yes Professor. I shall leave next week." Severus said as he turned to face the door.  
  
"Severus, I believe you were looking for this last night." Dumbledore said as he tossed a necklace with a glowing crystal dangling from the end.  
  
"Yes, I was, how did you know." Severus questioned.  
  
"Severus, perhaps the best thing for us is hidden beneath grudges and self doubt." Dumbledore said.  
  
"Hump!" Severus slumped out of Dumbledore's office knowing the daunting task that lay before him.  
  
***  
  
Across the Atlantic Ocean there was a woman awaking to the passing planes that flew above her bedroom. 


	2. Past Lives

Chapter 2: Past Lives  
  
2 months later  
  
Across the Atlantic Ocean there was a woman awaking to the passing planes that flew above her bedroom. She looked out the window knowing that today was going to be like any other day of her new life.  
  
Annabelle Figg was a Professor at a Muggle university in Colorado. She moved here from England sixteen years ago. Ever since that day she left, she had been known as "Anna" but others knew her by a different name.  
  
Anna got dressed and drove to work in her 1999 Volzwagon Beetle. Ever since she had woken up this morning, it felt as if someone was watching her every move. Every so often, she would look to the sky and yet she saw nothing. Memories of her past haunted her, and yet she told herself that she was just being paranoid.  
  
Anna went to her office that was located in the math and science building and sat down. She closed all of her blinds and locked the door, and then she pulled up her sleeve and saw the mark pulsating. She was terribly frightened because the mark had not appeared on her skin since the day she fled. She had tried for sixteen years to escape the pain, and escape the horror, that life was like when Voldermort was in power. Anna looked to the clock and saw that it was time to go to her chemistry class. She pushed down her sleeve, and walked out the door with her briefcase.  
  
Anna taught Chemistry at the University because she was most qualified for the position. Her previous experiences in her "past" life with substances and experimenting had provided her with a good background. She had been teaching for some years now, and found Chemistry to be closely related to Potions.  
  
Anna felt the mark burn every morning for the next week and her fears of her past life haunting her were becoming more real. Anna had sworn that she saw a green phoenix following her all day. Everywhere she looked, she saw the people in robes that she use to be a part of. It was funny that she had not really noticed them as much in sixteen years, as she had this past week. It was now evening time and Anna had spotted the green phoenix again. She became very scared and she drove to her house as quickly as possible. She locked all the doors, and sat in the living room telling herself that she was just being paranoid.  
  
"Hello, Ms. Figg, you are an extremely hard person to find. Do you know that?" A man dressed in black pants and a white tee shirt spoke out, who was now standing in her living room looking at her.  
  
"Snape! What the bloody hell are you doing here?" Anna spoke harshly as she started to back away from him.  
  
"Listen, Figg I have come to take you back to Hogwarts whether you like it or not!" Snape hissed.  
  
"I am not going anywhere, especially with you!" She yelled back.  
  
"You should be ashamed of yourself, a pureblood like you living like a Muggle!" Snape said as he sat on one of her chairs.  
  
"Jesus, Snape, were you even there, did you see Voldermort try to kill me!" She yelled.  
  
"Look, you or I did not choose the life we have, we were destined for it, and you can not runaway from your destiny, as much as you try." Snape said.  
  
"Well I have done a pretty damm good job so far!" Anna said.  
  
"Look, Dumbledore can not fight Voldermort alone. You are the last Phoenix that is not at Hogwarts." Snape said.  
  
"I am not a Phoenix any more!" Anna yelled.  
  
"Oh yes you are, we live by the light!" Snape hissed as he took out his wand being fed up with her defensiveness, and pointed it at her.  
  
"Where is your stuff?" Snape asked, referring to her wand and robes. He still pointed his wand at her.  
  
"It's…it's in the attic." She said wearily.  
  
"Accio trunk!" Snape shouted as the trunk came flying down from the attic.  
  
"Look you can come with me on your own will or you can come under my will." Snape hissed.  
  
"You wouldn't dare!" She hissed.  
  
"Watch me!" Snape threatened.  
  
"Accio wand!" Anna yelled as the wand came flying into her hand.  
  
"Pertrificus Totallus!" Snape muttered before she could even think of a curse to put on him. Anna fell to the ground and Snape raised her over his shoulder. He then grabbed the trunk in his hands and disapperated with a "pop."  
  
They arrived a moment later in Hogsmeade. Snape continued to carry her and her trunk to the Hogwarts grounds.  
  
"Severus! What on earth are you doing?" Minivera said worried.  
  
"Ah hush up, Ms. Figg was not that willing to come back with me so I took it into my own liberty." Snape said.  
  
"Dumbledore will not approve of this!" She hissed.  
  
"All Dumbledore said was to bring her back, so I did. Enough said." Snape said as he walked up the stairs to the Faculty wing.  
  
Snape opened the door to an empty room and laid her down in the bed. Knowing that she would wake soon, Snape put her trunk down, took out the crystal from his pocket and placed it on her dresser.  
  
"You are Annabelle Figg, Order of the Phoenix!" Snape said and closed the door. 


	3. Walking into the light

Chapter 3: Walking into the Light  
  
"Where am I?" Anna said as she opened her eyes to find herself in a large bedroom with mahogany wood dressers and nightstands.  
  
"Hello, anyone here?" She yelled. Anna became very nervous as no one replied. She stood up with a pounding headache and walked over to one of the dressers, and saw the Hogwarts emblem engrained in the wood.  
  
"Oh god! I can't be here, can I?" She asked herself.  
  
She looked on top of the dresser and saw it, the thing she had been trying to separate herself from for sixteen years. The crystal was beckoning to her, but she was fighting it, she did not want to put it on, it would make this nightmare a reality.  
  
After a few minutes of crying on her bed, she heard a knock on the door.  
  
"Ms. Figg, dinner is served." Snape said on the other side of the locked door.  
  
"I am not hungry!" She yelled.  
  
"Fine, starve for all I care!" Snape hissed back and then vanished.  
  
Anna did not go down to dinner, but she did decide she needed some fresh air around midnight. She grabbed her wand in her hand, and she felt it tingle. She had not used it in years and yet she never forgot a piece of magic that she learned from this school.  
  
"Alohamora!" She spoke to the door and it opened. Anna looked around the great big entryway. It looked exactly as she remembered it, except a little older. She was busy looking around when a voice spoke to her.  
  
"Can it be, Annabelle Figg, back at Hogwarts?" The poltergeist asked.  
  
"Peeves, you haven't changed a bit have you?" She said as she looked at his ghostly figure.  
  
"Ooh, I bet Snape is fuming!" Peeves laughed and disappeared.  
  
"What does he know?" She said to herself, opened the door, and walked out onto the grounds. She walked a good 15 minutes until she reached the beginning of the Forbidden Forest. She remembered how she would come out here to think, and even fall in love. She was angry that she was forced to come back, and wanted to scream at someone. However, just before she did she saw Severus Snape walking and talking to himself.  
  
"I can't believe she was so difficult. She knows better than any of us that we are the last phoenixes! She must have felt the mark burn! She is so pigheaded. Who does she thinks she is, running out on her family?" Snape fumed.  
  
Anna was so upset she ran back into the castle crying when she ran straight into Albus Dumbledore.  
  
"Belle, are you all right?" He asked.  
  
"What do you think, I was forced to come here, live in the same castle as Severus Snape, and fight a more powerful Voldermort!" She said upset.  
  
"Belle, if it is really your wish to go back to your Muggle life, then I am not going to stop you, but Harry is in more danger that ever before, and you are the only phoenix that is not present at this school protecting him." He said as he offered her a tissue.  
  
"I can't do this Dumbledore, I can't face him again." She cried.  
  
"I know the pain he caused to you and Severus, but you can't keep running from your past because like now it will catch up with you." He said.  
  
"I haven't done magic in sixteen years, Dumbledore; I am probably one of the least likely recruits for your war." She said.  
  
"I pray that this will not result in war, but the wizarding world is beginning to part, and Voldermort knows it. Secondly, I truly believe that you are the most qualified person for the job. I have also asked your mother to help me." Dumbledore said.  
  
"Ha, my mother, please do not even mention her around me." Anna said.  
  
"Did Severus give you the crystal?" He asked.  
  
"Yes, it was on my dresser when I awoke, but I did not put it on." She said  
  
"I see, well when you have made your decision whether to fight with us or see our world perish please come and see me." Dumbledore said.  
  
"It's not that I don't want to help, because I do. I just don't know if I have the courage." Anna said.  
  
"Courage, my dear is not the absence of fear; it knows that there is something more important." Dumbledore said, and walked away. (A/N: This quote is from Princess Diaries, and by someone else, I do not remember whom.)  
  
"Why does he always say things that make me feel horrible for my decision?" She said aloud after he had gone.  
  
"Because it was horrible of you!" Snape said sadistically and walked away.  
  
"God, I hate him!' She muttered after he was a few feet ahead of her.  
  
Snape walked back to his room thinking about the past week. He had had to deal with emotions that had been left untouched for sixteen years, and he knew that today those feelings would stop, because now he had to work with Belle, the last person he wanted to see again. She had hurt him all those years ago, and now Dumbledore was willing to bring her back with open arms, while he had to play unknown hero for her.  
  
The morning came too quickly for Anna. She did not want to face her fears and join the Order of the Phoenix, but she knew that she must for the wizarding world.  
  
"May I introduce Annabelle Figg, to everyone? You may know her as one of the last remaining phoenixes." Dumbledore said as she walked through the door into Dumbledore's office to find, Remus Lupin, Sirrus Black, Minivera McGonagall, Severus Snape and Fawkes, better known as Arabella Figg, her mother.  
  
"As you all know Annabelle, Severus, Arabella, and I are all animagus and can were born with the power to change into a phoenix. When Voldermort came to power, we were drafted into a special force known as the Order of the Phoenix. The is one phoenix that is not here yet, but you all know who I speak off, now if you will join us Annabelle, and put on the crystal. This crystal holds the light and our special power. If you were to break it, you would lose your ability to do magic." Dumbledore summed up, as the four of them walked to the desk grabbed their crystal and placed it around their necks.  
  
Instantly they all changed into phoenixes. Severus turned a deep green, Arabella turned red, Dumbledore silver, and Annabelle turned a deep purple. She stretched her wings and walked into the light. 


End file.
